Fight Path: Without Urijah Faber, top prospect Eric Lawson wouldn't be in Strikeforce

Even in telling the story now, Eric Lawson thinks the whole thing is almost too coincidental.

There he was, walking down a hallway of a building he had rarely been in on the University of California-Davis campus. He was close to finishing his economics degree, and he likely would soon be moving away to find his first job.

Wrestling was just a memory. He had been a longtime practitioner of the sport, but he had stopped competing as a freshman at UC-Davis to concentrate on BMX racing. But, through acquaintances, he knew a guy on campus named Urijah Faber, who would later go on to mixed-martial-arts fame in the WEC.

At the time, neither had been inside an MMA cage. Lawson was walking through this random hallway when he heard a voice he knew was Faber’s in a room nearby. He wandered over, said hello and noticed Faber doing research on a computer.

“He said, ‘Hey, come look at this guy. I’m going to fight him,'” Lawson told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “It was all still kind of new (in 2003), and I didn’t know what to think. He said, ‘You got to try this. You would love it.'”

Within months, Lawson would start his own MMA career with precious little training and soon become a Strikeforce stalwart. The 29-year-old, who during the day works in the field of mortgage loans, is 9-3 and looking for his next opportunity after a late cracked rib suffered during a sparring session knocked him off this weekend’s Strikeforce card.

But the 185-pounder remains one of Strikeforce’s most notable development projects, having won five of his six fights with the promotion. He hopes to rebound from his recent loss to Wayne Phillips at a February show.

He’s built for it, with a family background in wrestling, a lifelong hobby of thrill-seeking and the natural ability that helped him go from economics student to MMA fighter in just a few months.

All, really, because he knew Faber, and Faber took a fight.

Thrill-seeker

Lawson comes from a family of big people.

His father is about 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds. A brother, at his athletic peak, was about 6-foot-3 and 265. A sister was also athletically skilled at 5-11 and 185 pounds and went on to become an NCAA All-American throwing the shotput before appearing in three Olympic trials in the event.

And there was Lawson, who jokingly calls himself the runt of the litter, at 6 feet and walking around at 200 pounds.

“Sometimes I think it helps me (in fighting) that I had to sometimes fight for scraps at the table,” Lawson said with a laugh.

From an early age, he was trying to find anything that would provide a thrill, such as BMX racing, motorcycles and skiing. His family had a background in wrestling, so he also trained and participated in the sport while he was building homemade BMX ramps and looking for competitions.

When he was a freshman at UC-Davis, he had to make a choice because he couldn’t pursue both wrestling and BMX. He was burnt out on wrestling, so he chose the latter. In fact, he might have taken it on professionally if he hadn’t made a visit to a BMX friend near the end of his college studies and seen the somewhat unappealing conditions in which the pro BMXers lived.

As a native of the San Francisco Bay area, Lawson hoped to finish his degree and look for a job in the area. He had only a passing interest in MMA, and that came only because some of its earliest UFC stars were wrestlers.

Then he heard Faber’s voice in a secluded hallway.

A quick learner

On his computer screen, Faber was studying Jay Valencia, who would be the opponent for his first professional fight in a November 2003 Gladiator Challenge show. Faber encouraged all his friends near or on the UC-Davis wrestling team, including Lawson, to join him on the next card.

The promotion needed one more fighter, and five of Faber’s friends, including Lawson, wanted a shot. Lawson was closest to the weight class needed for the fight, so he got the chance.

The only problem was, he didn’t know anything about MMA fighting.

“I just wrestled with Urijah’s guys for a few weeks before the fight and went out and did it,” Lawson said.

Even more coincidental, Lawson’s first fight was on his birthday, Feb. 12, 2004. He earned a second-round rear-naked-choke victory and started his new fighting career.

Lawson has split his time between Gladiator Challenge and Strikeforce. His Strikeforce debut came in November 2007, when he was 3-1, and it remains his most memorable fight.

Two fights earlier, he had lost by triangle choke, so when he was again locked in the submission move against Josh Neal, he tried his hardest to not tap out again. In fact, he went about three minutes without tapping and earned praise from the announcers and plenty of cheers.

He went on to win the fight in the second round, and it provided confidence that he had the endurance and knowledge of MMA moves to continue winning. He won his first five Strikeforce appearances before losing this past February, which had him very motivated for Saturday’s card before he suffered his injury that is just serious enough to keep him from fighting.

Lawson’s story, though, underlines the relationships and coincidences that often begin MMA careers.

“If I hadn’t bumped into Urijah, I have no idea what I would be doing,” Lawson said. “It was just so crazy how it happened.”

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel is the lead features
writer for MMAjunkie.com. His weekly “Fight Path” column focuses on the
circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter
with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.